Hello! My name is Xiaoqiang...

I suddenly woke up from the darkness, and a force pushed me to break through the narrow restraints. My brothers and sisters woke up at the same time, and we broke through a gap above our heads and got out of the egg sac. At this time, my body was pure white, but after a while, as the pigments deposited, I turned brown, stretched my legs and feet, shook my antennae, and a little cockroach was born.

We have strong adaptability. We appeared on the earth 320 million years ago and are considered one of the oldest insects. After hundreds of millions of years of evolution, we now have about 4,300 species, and there are more than 250 species in China. Among them, only about dozens of species will invade human homes, such as me. We spread many diseases, making humans hate us especially. Even our strong vitality makes them envious and jealous. A Hong Kong man named Stephen Chow even named us "Xiao Qiang" in the movie, and since then this nickname has spread...

I haven't eaten since I hatched, so I'm going to look for food. We eat almost any organic matter, including hair, wood, and glue for stamps (traditional glue contains animal protein). Our favorite foods are sweets, starch, and fermented foods with a wine flavor, which are similar to humans' preferences. This is why we are willing to move from the forest to the human kitchen. Although we are authentic foodies, we have an advantage - we don't kill and never prey on living things. In nature, we only eat plants or dead plants and animals, acting as "scavengers." With us, the forest will become clean. I didn't expect that after being a "living Lei Feng" who has been quietly cleaning for hundreds of millions of years, the descendants of humans would call us "pests" and say that we spread diseases.

In fact, we love cleanliness very much. You will never see a dirty cockroach. Every member of our family is shiny and can be described as "spotless". Because our bodies are smooth and have a waxy layer, they can prevent dirt from attaching to them, and we clean our bodies frequently. It's just that the human world is too dirty, so it's inevitable that we will carry germs on our feet, and the habit of eating everything will bring germs into our saliva. Regarding these, I want to say that I really didn't mean it...

After several molts, I gradually grew up. Naturally, the process of growing up was accompanied by the screams of the hostess and the subsequent slippers. Some brothers died, but I ran fast and escaped the disasters. Sometimes I heard the hostess say: "Cockroaches are too difficult to deal with! Cockroach medicine is almost useless. I heard that cockroaches are the only creatures that survived a nuclear explosion! How terrible." Where did you hear this gossip? But to tell you the truth, we are indeed more resistant to radiation than humans.

In 1963, two human scientists, Ross and Cochran, found that the lethal dose of radiation to cockroaches is six to fifteen times higher than that to humans. But don't rush to admire us, take a look at other insects first: after the Hiroshima nuclear explosion, people found that some borers and their eggs could still grow normally under 48,000 to 68,000 rads (radiation absorption dose units); in 1959, two scientists named Wharton found that 64,000 rads of radiation could kill the most common fruit flies in the laboratory, and a kind of cocoon wasp even needed 180,000 rads to kill it. And what about us who you call "invincible"? Ross and Cochran only used 1,000 rads to interfere with our fertility, and 6,400 rads killed 93% of cockroaches! It can be seen that our ability to resist radiation is indeed more than ten times stronger than that of humans, but compared with other insects, you will know that we are at best a "level 2 mutant"...

Another molting started, this time it was extra strenuous. Looking back, I saw that I had grown wings and turned into an adult! I finally changed my equipment. Next time I meet humans, I won’t run around anymore. I can try another way to play with them... Ha, just as I was talking, the male owner came into the kitchen, saw me at a glance, took off his shoes and ran towards me. I kicked my legs calmly, spread my four wings, and started my "first flight". Watching myself soar into the air, and then looking at the stunned look of the male owner, it was so cool! I heard him shout: "Wow! This cockroach can fly!" At this time, the hostess spoke in the outer room: "I heard that those that can fly are pregnant cockroaches, because they are protecting the eggs in their stomachs!" Wow! My good mood was ruined by you. I am a real man, and you are pregnant!

Probably because the flying cockroaches are all adults, and they are very large, you stupid humans think that the big ones are all female and pregnant. In fact, our flight has nothing to do with pregnancy, and there is a counterexample: some insects of the family Geochelone of the order Blattodea (commonly known as earthworms and earthworms, which can also be considered a type of cockroach) are wingless females and winged males. In this way, no matter how pregnant the females are, they can't fly... Those who have never seen cockroaches fly are probably from the north. Because the cockroaches in northern homes are mainly German cockroaches, which have wings but basically don't fly. However, these large cockroaches in our southern home (such as species of Blattodea and Geochelone) not only fly frequently, but also do far more than just glide.

After becoming an adult, I successfully found my beloved partner, married her and had children, and our family became more and more prosperous. However, this was bad news for the two humans living in the same room, and they almost lost confidence. One night, the hostess suddenly looked at the computer screen and shouted: "Husband! The Internet says that if an average family finds one cockroach, it means that there are at least 20,000 cockroaches in the house! Then there must be at least a million cockroaches in our house! I want to move!" My wife and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. Thank you for your good wishes for our family, but we really don’t have that many members...

First of all, the description of this sentence is very vague. What kind of family is an "average family"? Also, where is "one found" found? In the kitchen, where cockroaches are most likely to gather? Or in the bedroom, where there are the least cockroaches? In the daytime or at night? Is it one found a day or one found every ten years? This rumor is purely to scare people. However, if you often see cockroaches crawling out during the day at home (note, often), then it means that there are a lot of cockroaches. Because several common cockroaches in the home are nocturnal and just hide in crevices during the day. If there are so many cockroaches that all the crevices are filled, the extra cockroaches will have to wander outside during the day...

At this time, the man said, "Yes, if you pull out the cockroach's head, it can still live for 9 days!" Uh... I say, even if you hate me, you don't have to torture me like this, right? Pulling out the head and letting me die slowly is too cruel... In fact, not only cockroaches, but many other insects can live for a long time after removing their heads. We can compare headless cockroaches with headless humans:

1. Stop bleeding

If a human's head is chopped off, he will bleed to death, but the circulatory system of insects is different from that of humans. It is an open-tube circulation. When the head is chopped off, the wound on our neck will be quickly blocked by the action of the hemocytes or podocytes, so that the bleeding will not continue.

2. Breathing

Humans breathe through their mouths or noses, and the brain controls these functions, so if the head is cut off, breathing will stop. Insects breathe through the spiracles in their abdomens, and do not need to control the breathing function through the brain, and the blood does not need to transport oxygen. They can breathe air directly through the ducts through the spiracles.

3. Consumption

We are cold-blooded animals and do not need to consume energy to maintain body temperature, which means we need much less food than humans. We can survive for weeks with one meal. And after the head is removed, we will stay there honestly and will not run around, which can reduce physical exertion. As long as we do not encounter predators and the wound is not infected by bacteria or viruses, we can continue to live for a month until we starve to death. However, this seemingly amazing ability is meaningless in real life. Because our head is very small and hidden under the pronotum, and we have sensitive tentacles to detect danger, even if we are accidentally injured, it is almost impossible for the whole body to be intact and only the head to be lost. Even if it really falls off, given the dirty environment we live in, we will quickly die from the infection of the wound...

Fortunately, my presence did not make the two humans sick, but just made them feel bad. The battle of wits and courage with them will probably continue. In fact, we cockroaches are indeed one of the most successful species on earth. We have to admit it. However, some of our behaviors are common in the insect world, but because we are the only ones who live with humans day and night, people think that only we are so strong. In fact, every species has its own unique survival skills in order to adapt to the environment and survive. Humph, the world is so dangerous, how can you survive without some skills?

#Easter Eggs

A collection of cockroach extermination methods

Reliable:

1. Pour hot water into the gaps of kitchen cabinets to kill hidden cockroaches.

2. Cockroaches love to eat sweet food. You can put some sweet food in a small-diameter long-necked glass bottle and apply sesame oil on the mouth of the bottle. When the cockroaches enter the bottle, it will be difficult for them to crawl out because the bottle wall has been lubricated by sesame oil.

3. Mash a steamed potato, add two spoons of boric acid (available at pharmacies) and one spoon of sugar, mix thoroughly and knead into pieces, place in places where cockroaches often appear, and wait for them to eat. Sugar is used to attract cockroaches to eat, and mashed potatoes are used to make the bait clump in addition to attracting food. Boric acid will dehydrate cockroaches and kill them. This is the most effective method, but special attention should be paid to prevent children and pets from accidentally eating it.

4. Dissolve an appropriate amount of boric acid in hot water, pour it into the mop and wipe the floor. After drying, the boric acid will penetrate into the gaps in the floor and prevent cockroaches.

Unreliable:

1. Cockroaches escape from danger by relying on the sensory organs on their cerci to sense external vibrations. Therefore, when people see cockroaches, they should immediately say "Big Brother!" to disrupt the cockroach's perception, and then quickly slap it, which will make it easier to kill it.

2. Label all the rooms in your home as "kitchen" to make the cockroaches run around and die of exhaustion.

3. Use an 18-pound sledgehammer to hit the kitchen floor every day to create an earthquake phenomenon, which will scare the cockroaches and make them flee.

The author of this article: Zhang Chenliang, deputy editor-in-chief of "Bowu" magazine, director of the integrated media center of "National Geographic China", former operator of the Weibo @Bowu magazine, member of the Ecological Committee of the Chinese Science Writers Association, the eighth director of the Beijing Science and Technology Popularization Creation Association, Master of Entomology from China Agricultural University, and one of the top ten science communication figures of the China Association for Science and Technology in 2017.

Review experts: Huang He, Li Chunli, Chen Tao, Xu Xiaoping

Source: Chongqing Science and Technology Museum

Statement: Except for original content and special notes, some pictures are from the Internet. They are not for commercial purposes and are only used as popular science materials. The copyright belongs to the original authors. If there is any infringement, please contact us to delete them.